


maybe she was a person after all.

by emjam



Series: Human After All [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Image, Cybernetics, Developing Friendships, Gen, Post Recall Commander Pharah, Post-Recall, Post-Recall Commander McCree, Prosthesis, Reaper gets captured by Overwatch, Reconciling Modification and Humanity, Sombra joined Overwatch, Sombra | Olivia Colomar-centric, Some Mercy side-plot, omnic prejudice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 12:10:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20358286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emjam/pseuds/emjam
Summary: "Sombra had chosen this circuitry in her skin, had volunteered for the wiring that made her what she was.But still."Aftermath, in which Sombra continues to handle the day-to-day of Overwatch and must confront a few ideas about herself.





	maybe she was a person after all.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is a direct sequel to a previous fic of mine ("maybe she would stick with overwatch a while longer."), and I highly suggest reading that first, or else a few things here would probably be pretty confusing! this takes place a few months after the last fic.
> 
> this fic is entirely sombra's pov, as opposed to last time, where it was split between her and angela. 
> 
> enjoy!

Birds were chirping off in the distance. Churning puffs of clouds rolled gently across the robin-egg sky. Only the lightest of breezes rippled through the upshoots of tough grass dotting the field, and there wasn’t any reason to bundle up or turn on a fan. It was an unbelievably perfect day outside.

Sombra would rather spend it cooped up in her room researching, or watching TV, or doing literally anything other than this.

A few paces in front of her, within the field of pat-down dirt that roughly equaled a rectangle, Genji _shnked_ a few shuriken into his hand. What was he, a video game character? Blackwatch was real far up its own ass back in the day. They were so full of themselves that they thought they needed to make someone into a murder ninja and kill his family for them. Really, she would have to ask Gabe a few questions once he was done vaguely resembling a swarm of bees.

“Want to try again?” That faceless visor gleamed under the sun’s insistent rays in flashes of white.

The tolerance in his inhuman voice was infuriating. His words sounded like a challenge, but a patient one, and Sombra didn’t know something like that was even possible. She rolled her eyes, arms crossed, standing a few pointed yards away from the shiny death machine in front of her. “This is pointless. There’s no way I’m gonna get my _spine _ripped out or something. If I did, I’d be dead. Or prefer to be.”

“There’s no harm in practicing with limits,” he shrugged, all too lightly. “You might learn that you’re capable of something new.”

“Ha, I can already turn invisible, what more could anyone need?” She feigned boredom, something she was so good at partially because she was actually bored so much of the time. Instead of facing her opponent, she picked at an acrylic nail that seemed like it was about to come off. Out of the corner of her eye, that neon-gleaming not-human was still standing in position, waiting for her without so much as a twitch. Patient.

Motionless, as the breeze tumbled past them both.

She looked up at him. His empty visor was emotionless and quiet, merely glowing in a strip of steady neon. Like a staring contest with a microwave oven.

With a groan, she finally conceded. “Ugh, fine. But only because if I blow off another practice, one of you guys might actually kill me.” Time to fight, again. And suck at it. Bringing her gun to the ready, she reflexively pulled a hand up to activate invisibility, before remembering the rules.

Genji caught that immediately. He was quicker than her somehow, which she absolutely hated with vehemence. “Hey, I don’t remember cheat codes being allowed,” The man teased, somehow communicating humor through the crackle of his voice.

“Step out of the armor, then we’ll talk,” she simply said, reluctantly keeping her fingertips away from her systems. Now that she wasn’t allowed to access them for the sake of a stupid kind of fight that would literally never happen, she was itching for that warm burning hum to envelope her in anonymity once again, or to feel that lightning-bolt connection through her fingertips while she manipulated something. She didn’t realize it was like crack. Maybe this poor kid in front of her had a point about expanding horizons, or whatever. Not that she would say so.

Soon, they were packing the dirt down with their heels in an avoidant dance. Genji was swift with his shuriken, careful to only suggest that they hit Sombra. They didn’t puncture, but she still got the gist when a few of them whipped past her ears in calculated precision.

The acrobatics needed in a fight against Genji were made more taxing when she wasn’t allowed to use her translocator or her invisibility. Much of her energy was being put into ducking and side-stepping a stab or a series of shuriken, things she could usually easily avoid with some cybernetic help.

Now, she could only get a hit in with a gun or a limb, which was taking more thought when the whole fight felt like playing jump rope and hoping she didn’t get tied up in the string.

Her opponent wasn’t saying anything cheeky or irritating anymore, only letting out short grunts of exertion when he leapt or dashed. It was strange to think that the monk-like cyborg and the efficient machine were one and the same.

Sombra fired a short burst while at a run, aiming to barely miss his armored shoulder, but he had already disappeared. Cursing, she kept running. Why was this so much harder with the rules?

It was hard to watch for an entrance when he kept moving like that. Carefully, she examined him. First, she ran in one direction, and he went parallel to meet her, protecting his side and back. She doubled back and went in another, and he did the same thing. Hm. She swung over to one side and when he went to protect that side of himself, she quickly reversed her movements, pulling back and firing a few bullets into the empty space above his left shoulder. Faked him out.

“Good one,” he called, and she just smiled. Maybe she could pull it off again? Or do something else?

Getting a nice run going, she began to circle Genji even as he himself didn’t stay still.

Amused, he said, “What are you doing?”

Swiftly, she reversed her direction, trying to keep her opponent guessing. It was kind of fun, this “no cheats” thing, when she actually got into it.

Behind her, his reloading mechanism sounded.

“Sombra! Duck!”

Genji’s sudden shout chilled her skin. She had never heard his vocal chords strain before. Immediately, she dropped to the ground in a crouching kneel, one hand balancing her upon the dense ground. Ahead of her, she watched three shuriken imbed themselves violently into a nearby tree, bark splitting at the impact.

Those would have hit her.

A litany of curses almost burst out, but she was used to risks like that, so instinctively, her mouth kept shut. Without rising, she turned around to her sparring partner, the remaining flesh above her leg prosthetics quivering with leftover adrenaline.

Genji was jogging towards her, green visor still impartial and cold as he rotated his right wrist. “I’m so sorry! Are you alright?” He moved to crouch down to her level, but she was already standing up.

“You know we’re not supposed to hurt each other, right?” She said, a bit annoyed that there wasn’t a face to see.

“Yes, I’m just dying to murder you,” He joked. “My wrist went out of alignment while I was letting the shuriken go, which has never happened before, and that’s why they ended up heading for you. I’ll have to see Angela about that.” He looked down at the offending wrist, pulling at it gently with his free hand. “I cannot overstate how sorry I am.” He returned his visor to her eyes, concern coming through in his voice. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Sombra ran a hand through her hair, sweat from exercise collecting on her palm. “Well, I’m not hurt. And, uh, thanks for warning me.”

“Of course.” Genji took one last look at his wrist. “We won’t do this again until this is fixed.”

“Fine with me.” She rubbed her arm, subconsciously trying to stop the shivers that were inexplicably making her skin buzz. “You might have had a point, though. The fight actually got kind of interesting, I mean, before you almost killed me.” Sometimes this sort of thing had to be pulled out of her inch by painful inch, but believe it or not, she was actually getting better at being… _nice_… these days.

“I’m glad!” He said with the sort of genuine happiness that raked against Sombra like a cheese grater. They began to walk back inside. “I was serious. Sometimes a different perspective is what you need in order to grow.”

“Sure.” This was her cue to bounce from this particular conversation, clearly. She sped up her strides and disappeared through the side door of the kitchen.

Genji shook his head and kept his slow pace towards the building.

* * *

“Angelaaaa…” Sombra poked her head into Angela’s office. “I know you’re gonna starve yourself, so I brought some lunch.” She clutched a sandwich and a bag of chips in her hands.

“Not now, Sombra.” Angela hunched over her desk, artificial lamps casting the room in sickly light. There was an edge to her. She didn’t swivel around, keeping her back to Sombra. In her hand was a pen with which she furiously scribbled something onto some paper.

Sombra rolled her eyes. No one uses paper anymore. “Come on, I wanna hang out.” She threw the bag of chips in an underhand toss. It smacked into Angela’s head with a soft crinkle, then dropped to the floor.

Angela finally turned in her chair, frustration lining her brow. She leaned down and swiped the bag up off the floor. “Please leave me alone.”

That was too serious. Something was up. Sombra narrowed her eyes and slinked further into the room. “What happened?”

“It’s not my business to tell,” she sighed. “I just need to let off some steam. _Alone_.” She finally looked at Sombra with hard, murderous eyes.

Sombra backed up. “Okay, but you’ll tell me later.”

“No, I will not.”

“Yeah you will,” she insisted with confidence. When Angela didn’t answer, she chucked the cling-wrap sandwich as well. It thumped securely into Angela’s lap. “Eat some food before you kill yourself. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Angela slowly picked the sandwich up with both hands. After a starving silence, she murmured out a “thanks.”

Sombra gave a mock-salute and left.

* * *

“You sure?”

McCree nodded. “There ain’t much we can do while he’s like this.”

He and Sombra looked out to the holding cell. Behind the thick pane of glass, countless nanobots attempted to copy human form.

“But how will you keep him in?” She asked.

The commander lowered his voice to a raspy whisper. Even though Reaper was intangible at the moment, neither could deny that by some sort of scientific miracle, he could still hear the going-ons around him. “Torbjorn, Angela and I took a look at him and reinforced the cell a bit. Should keep anything in now - including lil’ wayward bots.”

Sombra had to stifle a small laugh at the image of her old boss collapsing into nanobots and failing to make it beneath the glass, instead pressing wisp-like against the pane. “He’s gonna hate this.”

“Yeah, well…” McCree wasn’t laughing. “Have to do this sooner or later. Can’t leave ‘im like that forever.” He rested a ready hand over the gun on his hip and took a measured step back. “So, whenever you’re ready.”

Forcing herself to ignore the touch of guilt behind her new boss’s eyes, she stepped forward and drew up her hand to pull forth her interface. With some concentration, she extended her lengthy reach beyond the glass and into the cell, grabbing hold of Reaper’s code. He began to swarm more aggressively as she went in and connected a link or two. Finalizing her little edits, she closed her screens.

Slowly, a reverse death occurred in front of their eyes. Nanobots began the agonizing crawl to each other, linking together to create form once again. It was the opposite of decomposition, off-color flesh knitting together and beginning to fill out the cloak that had previously dripped over the mess of bots. Cheeks filled out and fingernails gained definition. Soon, a dead man was alive, if not well, behind impenetrable glass.

And he didn’t have his mask.

McCree was all rough lines. “Well, ain’t this interestin’,” he said.

An ill cloud of smoke climbed upwards from Reaper’s mouth as a growl rumbled out of him. Wordlessly, he disintegrated into dust and pooled towards the front of the cell, unsurprisingly only managing to pile up against the glass. Escape route explored, he returned back to the lone bench in the cell and became a person again. “Figures.”

Honestly, the image wasn’t as funny as Sombra imagined it would be.

Beside her, McCree leaned back. His mouth was a stubborn line. “I’m guessin’ you couldn’t handle Jack’s boy scout act anymore, so you started shootin’ people for fun.” He crossed his arms across his broad chest. “That was never a good excuse to me.”

Reaper glowered, unwell skin in poor shape under harsh, unfortunate lighting. “Of course you don’t like it, you idiot. You never saw the whole picture.”

“I’d say I did, and’ even though I didn’t enjoy it, I wasn’t about to discard all right an’ wrong ‘cause of it.”

A death rattle of a laugh left Reaper. “Of course. You always were too _good _for that.”

“I used to think _you _were too good for that.” McCree’s hardened gaze bore into Reaper. “What happened to doin’ the right thing?”

“What happened to doing the right thing for _me_?” Embittered, angry, Reaper leaned forward as if to threaten his old protege through the glass.

The air was suddenly extremely tense. Sombra couldn’t decide who to look at - this whole thing was very awkward for her, and probably downright enraging for everyone else.

McCree didn’t back down. He simply stood still and murmured to Sombra, “Mind guardin’ him till the others can come over? I’m done here for now.”

“Eh, I’m not doing anything important today, why not?” It was easy for Sombra to keep a level voice during one of Reaper’s outbursts, not least because it would piss Gabe off to no end.

“Thanks.” Taking one last look at their prisoner, McCree soundlessly exited the room.

Sombra watched him leave, then swiftly dropped herself into the one chair available and loudly clasped her hands together. “A bit of an awkward reunion for everyone, huh, Gabe?”

Reaper put his head in his ungloved hands.

“I _know_,” she said, as if he had responded. “New boss and old boss. Sheesh, the tension. Should’ve thought of some icebreakers.”

“It’s a bit hard to break a glacier,” Reaper practically ground out.

Sombra cackled. “Was that a joke? I thought I’d never see the day!” She leaned her elbows on her knees. “So, you miss him?”

“Sombra. He is on my hitlist. I hate him.” Something that sounded a bit like “and I hate you too” rumbled out of him, too light for Sombra to know if she really heard it or not.

“Well, sure, but you never actually kill him.”

Reaper merely looked at her. Without the ever-present mask, he was only slightly more expressive, a touch of eyebrow and mouth motion betraying him a little bit more.

“Oh, come on, I’ve seen you barely miss your shot dozens of times! Once is one thing, but after a while, you have to wonder if it’s intentional.” She rested her back fully on the seat.

“_Sombra_,” he threatened, as if they weren’t separated by state-of-the-art glass and the absurd efficiency of Torbjorn’s engineering.

“Ugh, fine, I’ll stop.” She adopted a slightly different position, resting an arm on the back of the chair. “So, what was it like to be a dust cloud for that long?”

“...It sucked.”

Sombra couldn’t help her laughter - and really, even if she could, would she stop herself?

He didn’t break the angry smolder in his eyes. “I’m guessing the good doctor made those for you?” He gestured with a hand towards her additions, new prosthetics from the knees down.

Sombra stuck her metal legs out to show them off. “I never read anywhere that Angela was an artist.” The joke curled sweetly out of her mouth. “And take a look at this.” She secured one hand around her left leg. With the manipulation of a few specific pressure points around the top of the prosthetic, there was a chrome hiss, and then she was holding her leg up in the air. Her stump’s scars were only a faint, shiny paling of her normal pigmentation.

“Yeah, I’m sure that wasn’t traumatic for you or anything.” His arms were crossed in self-reliant defiance, similar to McCree earlier, though Sombra graciously decided not to mention that.

She swallowed a bit harder than usual, but he didn’t notice. “Oh, shut up. Always a party pooper.” With an eye roll, she resecured her leg. “Like you’re the master of coping with your own traumas.”

Dark wisps rolled off of his skin in silent frustration, but he didn’t take the bait.

“Just saying, I think my response to this ‘traumatic event’ is way better than yours.” She watched the blackened smoke curling off of his body. “I’m not going on a killing spree.”

A growl simply vibrated from somewhere inside of him.

* * *

Knocks on her door were rare. Or, they used to be. Sombra’s been finding that the longer she stayed here, the more common that sort of thing became. Swinging her legs out of bed and closing down her Netflix screen, she meandered over to her door and opened it.

Angela stood in the mouth of the doorframe, weariness dragging down her features. She sighed. “I hate to admit that you’re right, but you are.” Something within her was brewing, but Sombra couldn’t tell what it was.

“That could be about a few different things, so I’m gonna have to ask you to explain,” Sombra responded lightly.

“I mean, I really do need to talk to someone about this.” She relentlessly picked at her fingers - not with nerves, but instead with pent-up energy. “Can I come in?”

Obliging, Sombra shut the door behind her guest. Immediately, Angela dropped like a stone into her desk chair. “Sometimes, I understand why Reaper wants to kill people.” Each word was sharp with anger, the kind of thing you say when you care more about the magnitude of the words than the truth of them.

Sombra’s eyebrows climbed upwards. “Whoa. I never pegged you for the type to shroud yourself in pure teenage angst.”

“Shut up.” She picked up a _Pachimari_ stress toy that was lying around on the desk and tossed it at her host’s face, who barely swerved in time to avoid the attack. Immediately, her anger left her shoulders and she sighed, pressing both hands to her tired face. “Sorry. I’m just… not in the best place.”

No matter how many times it happened now, something new in Sombra squirmed at the idea of sharing genuinity with others. It wasn’t often that people exposed themselves to her without her planning an eventual betrayal of their vulnerability down the line. She spoke carefully. “What happened?”

“Hanzo Shimada is joining us soon.”

“Oh.” Sombra knew a fair amount about the other Shimada - a byproduct of her research into Genji in the past. “And you’re… pissed?”

“At what he did to Genji. I have no idea how he managed to forgive Hanzo for that.”

Oh! “Yeah, I’d be mad about that too.” No one said she was good at conversational empathy, but she was trying.

Angela curled up in the desk chair. “Every time I remember that he is coming, I can’t help but think of Genji’s injuries. The first time we met, he was practically dead.”

The untouchable cyborg had started out as bloodied and mangled flesh. Some images Sombra managed to scrounge up a long time ago fit into horrible perspective now. It’s not that she didn’t know it was Genji the first time she saw those pictures… she just didn’t know _Genji_.

What a shitty thing for Angela to have stuck in her head.

“You really care about him,” Sombra found herself murmuring.

“Once you’ve had your hands in the guts of a person… it’s hard not to care for them in some way.” Angela turned to look into the light of the desk lamp, bangs hanging over her forehead. “He’s my friend. I think he might get hurt.”

What was this burning feeling in Sombra’s stomach? Oh, cool. Guilt.

“I’m sorry about what I said before, about you and Genji.” Her words had fallen to an unusual grade of seriousness. “It was shitty of me to assume you were just experimenting with him. Weaponizing him.”

Angela shook her head. “I can see how you would get that idea from the old reports. Neither Blackwatch nor Overwatch were fond of writing everything down.” Her lips tightened. “I often question whether or not I should have answered the recall at all. Perhaps this dream was never meant to be dug up.”

Cynicism wasn’t a stranger to Sombra. Usually, she would even agree with it. Large organizations like this were always a breeding ground for mistakes and corruption, the kinds for which small towns and local communities always ended up paying the price.

But, this wasn’t a large organization anymore. It was a short-staffed attempt to truly help the world, wasn’t it? The whole thing was a bit too optimistic for her, but it must have some weight to it, because here she was now, comforting well-known doctor and former Overwatch associate Angela Ziegler. What was her life?

Regardless of what she should and shouldn’t be doing, she didn’t like seeing her friend so… not herself. She wracked her brain. “Didn’t you tell me once that this Overwatch tried to look out for each other?”

“Yes…” She eyed Sombra warily.

“So does it even matter what you guys were before? This doesn’t look like the old Overwatch to me.” Sombra paused. “I mean, _I’m in it_.”

Angela laughed, her dread peeling back slightly. “There _are _a few things different around here.”

“Exactly. You’re just trying to help people. There’s no big organization with ulterior motives this time.”

“I suppose…”

“Maybe Hanzo might even be an asset, who knows,” Sombra mused.

“Or just an ass,” Angela muttered. She rubbed her face. “I don’t know how I’ll keep myself civil around him. I’ll just have to try.”

Sombra shrugged. “Or, you could just not hold yourself back. He did do some messed up shit.”

Angela shook her head with a wry twist of her lips. “I’m not sure if that would endear me to Genji too much.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s already ‘endeared’ to you. I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m gonna get dinner, wanna come?” She slid off the bed and headed to the door. As Angela joined her, she reassured, “Don’t worry about it, it’ll be fine.”

Angela nodded, though there was still unease in her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> this whole thing is already written (as before), it's just a matter of editing the chapters for the very last time and getting them out! there's a lot I'm not happy with but tbh I'm just done looking at this haha
> 
> also, a lot of the content for this story was inspired by rooks_and_ravens' comment on my last fic, that mentioned sombra's attitude towards genji's cyborgification. If you're reading this, I wanted to give you a shout out!


End file.
